Users who wish to store and organize digital files including images, music, and video have two basic options. One option is to store and organize the digital files in containers on their PCs using a standard tree-based directory service provided by most computer operating systems (e.g., Windows™, UNIX™, Macintosh™). File system directories are capable of storing digital files of any Mime type. Mime type is a file identification based on the Mime encoding system and is a standard for identifying content of a file. The major Mime types are applications, audio, image, text, and video. Typically, anyone with permission to write to a directory may store any file there regardless of the Mime type of the file.
The second option is to store digital files into containers, such as albums in online photosharing sites, and containers controlled by software applications, e.g., photo collection applications, music collection applications, and video collection applications, for example.
Unlike file system directories, however, containers in the second option are capable of storing and handling only specific types of digital files. For example, only digital images can be uploaded to online photosharing sites or imported into photo collection applications, while only music files can be handled by music collection applications. In these types of applications, users cannot specify the specific media types that will be stored or shared. For example, in conventional online photosharing, a user is unable to store both images and video clips in a common album.
With respect to conventional photosharing sites specifically, not only is the user limited to uploading only image files, but once the images are uploaded to the site, the user must manually organize the images by creating new photo albums and then moving selected images to the appropriate photo albums.
Once the images are manually stored and organized, the user may then notify others of the images using one of two methods. In the first method, the user sets preferences for the album specifying what users have permission to view the album, and personally informs each person of the web address of the album. In the second and more common method, the user types-in the e-mail addresses of each person the user wants to view the album and the photosharing site automatically sends an e-mail inviting recipients to view the album by clicking on the enclosed URL.
Overtime, users find manually organizing files and sending notifications image-by-image to be burdensome and tedious. Accordingly, what is needed is an improved method and system for storing and organizing digital files. The present invention addresses such a need.